[sllug-members]: Pioneer day: Most important/influential OpenSourcePioneers???

[Stuart Jansen]

On Fri, 2006-07-28 at 15:44 -0500, Smith, Jeff wrote:
> I would like to cast an anti-vote for Richard Stallman.  To use Utah
> Pioneer terminology he is the Mountain Meadow Massacre of Open Source.
> Yes he is a part of the movement but IMHO he does more harm then good.  

That is hardly a fair assessment. Yes, he can be a bit extremist and
unusual at times, but it is impossible to overlook his contributions.

1) The GPL. Frankly, for the GPL alone RMS deserves a position in the
pantheon of F/OSS notables. Put simply, it is a work of genius. The
treaty terms under which competitors can safely contribute to a common
project. The promise that guarantees my hours of volunteer labor will
not be stolen by greedy people.

Say what you will about the merits of GPL v. BSD v. Artistic, etc. you
have to recognize its importance.

2) The GNU project. Next time you use sed -i or grep --color=yes or any
number of comfortable core command line utilities, remember to thank the
GNU project which RMS created.

3) GCC. I would like to draw special attention to one of the GNU
projects, that compiler extraordinaire. If you need me to explain why
GCC is so important, you're not qualified to judge RMS.

4) emacs. Love it or hate it, you have to recognize its importance.

5) The FSF. I respect RMS for his far sighted version and willingness to
create something greater than himself. If you're a F/OSS geek, how can
you think the FSF is anything other than a force for good?

6) GPLv3. I have been impressed watching RMS and the FSF working with
the world to define the next version of the GPL. Many are worried about
how it will turn out, myself included, but the FSF seems to be listening
and I get less worried each time I learn more.

A more accurate LDS analogy would not be the Mormon Meadows Massacre, it
would be Brigham Young. You seem to be arguing that Brigham Young was
bad for Mormonism because he the the massacre happen and because he
allowed polygamy to continue. Have you considered that maybe you are the
one that is wrong? Not Brigham Young, and not RMS?

-- 
Stuart Jansen              e-mail/jabber: sjansen at buscaluz.org
                           google talk:   stuart.jansen at gmail.com

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at 
the results." -- Winston Churchill
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